


The Beast Beneath The Skin.

by morwrach



Series: A Prowl of Wampuses [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (In my headcanon Grindelwald is played by Mads Mikkelsen), Angst, Credence is besotted with Graves' masculinity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff too., Happy Ending, Hobbying magizoologist Credence Barebone, M/M, Magical tattoos!, Mutual recovery struggles, Post-Canon Fix-It, Workaholic Percival Graves, domestic setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:11:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9554126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morwrach/pseuds/morwrach
Summary: Hidden under Mr Graves’ smart shirtsleeves is an enchanted tattoo of the wampus: a talisman for strength and a reminder of Ilvermorny. It rages and pounces and prowls. Credence is fixated with it.Translation into Chinese thanks to the lovely cindyfxx here:皮下困兽





	

Credence discovers that Mr Graves has a tattoo on a frosty night in mid-February. Memories of screams and falling masonry and the antiseptic smell of MACUSA’s holding cells come to haunt him again, and he can’t get back to sleep. Figuring that he will fetch his copy of Newt’s book and read until excitable thoughts of magical, wondrous beasts banish away his wrongdoings, he pads out into the empty, silent hallway. Pushing the door of the sitting room open softly, he takes care to shuffle inside the room without any noise carrying to Graves’ bedroom.  
  
Except that Mr Graves is not in his bedroom. The older man is sprawled in one of the big armchairs in front of the fire, sound asleep. His arms rest along the arms of the chair, elegant hands dangling, and his legs stretch out, catching warmth from the blaze. Credence knows that he should turn and retreat back into the hall, but he finds his feet taking him over to the man. For the three months of living together in Graves’ brownstone, Credence has never seen him so – underdressed. When Credence drags himself to the dining room table for breakfast, and when Credence reluctantly takes himself off to bed, Graves is always buttoned up and hidden behind suit and tie and starched white shirt. In the mornings, Credence lies under the covers and listens to the sounds of water running in the bathroom as Graves shaves and washes before work. He strains to hear the neat sharp noises of the razor, the sounds of Graves’ bare feet on the wet floor. When the older man emerges, his cheeks are perfectly smooth, and every hair on his head is in place. As he stands next to Credence in the kitchen, their shared space smells of soap, cologne, and Sleekeazy’s.  
  
Yet, the Graves in front of him now is everything that daytime Graves is not. His clothes are loose, and the wine-dark dressing gown he wears pools around him. Gone is the high, white collar and tight waistcoat, replaced instead with a collarless soft grey shirt. A rush of warmth races through Credence as he notices it’s unbuttoned so low that he can see the wiry grey and black hair covering Graves’ chest, and the contours of his muscles, rising and falling evenly. Credence’s ravenous gaze traces the flickering firelight over Graves’ strong collarbones and up his neck, peppered with little freckles like starry constellations. His socked feet make little noise against the carpet as he edges ever nearer. Graves’ head is tipped back against the armchair at what must surely be an uncomfortable angle, but his face is gentle. There’s a slight soft frown across his brow, and beneath his thick eyelashes flutter slightly. The burnished light illuminates the stubble of his jaw, and Credence wonders briefly if this is what it feels like to be bewitched. He feels like he could spend all night, all week, all year in this precious, unreal moment.  
  
Graves shifts slightly in the chair, and his right hand twitches. _“Protego”_ he murmurs in a low husky tone, and Credence almost jumps out of his skin.  
  
Again, Graves murmurs drowsily, _“Protego horribilis.”_  
  
Credence wrenches his gaze from the floor only to find that the man in front of him is still sound asleep, his brow wrinkled, and face pained. _“Prote-”_ he struggles to murmur, _“protego maxima.”_  
  
There’s an edge of desperation to his voice. Graves looks so vulnerable, so unlike himself, and Credence can’t help reaching out and softly, oh so softly, stroking a lock of that deep black hair out of Graves’ closed eyes. The man hums and seems to settle again, shifting and turning in the chair, nuzzling his face into a cushion. Touching even the smallest part of his guardian seems to cause an insistence to bubble in Credence’s blood– and he has to ball his hands against his sides to stop himself from reaching out again. Up close Graves smells of sweat, whiskey, and sandalwood, and something musky and inherently _Graves._ He feels the urge to bury his face in Graves’ warm neck and take a deep inhale. Guiltily, he tears his gaze away from the tempting hint of shoulder muscles where Graves’ dressing gown has fallen back. Raking his glance downwards in the completely safe direction of the fire, he catches sight of it. Graves’ sleeve has slipped down, and across his forearm there’s a tattoo of big black cat. It’s a panther, he proudly identifies, thinking of the no-maj books he’s been borrowing from the New York Public library. He had no idea wizards could have tattoos – he’s only ever seen them on dockworkers on the streets, and those markings were faded and blue. By contrast, Graves’ tattoo is bold, clean-looking, a mass of black elegance - and it’s… _moving._ The beast’s little ears are delicately twitching, and the long tail is flicking idly from side to side. Credence lets out a little hiccup of a laugh. Delighted and absorbed, he squats down on his heels to look more closely. His cold nose is almost pressed up against Graves’ dark arm hair as he leans in. The cat is muscular and powerful, all lithe shapes and smooth lines as it sleeps. Like Mr Graves, Credence thinks. Powerful, dormant.  
  
Looking more closely, he notices that the cat has six legs, and with a jolt of excitement, he realises that it can’t be a panther – it must be a wampus. Careful not to brush against Graves’ sleeping form, Credence shuffles across the carpet to retrieve his copy of _Fantastic Beasts_ from under the cushion of the other armchair, and rifles quickly through the pages, ignoring the rustling noises as he tries to find the ‘Wampus’ page. He studiously compares the tattoo-beast and the beast illustrated on the pages. _Two legs for fight, four legs for flight”_ he reads aloud, imagining himself as Mr Scamander. In front of him, the wampus cracks open one glowering eye, and Credence practically runs out of the sitting room, stray pages from Newt’s book billowing out behind him.  


***  
  
He can’t look Mr Graves in the eye at breakfast the following morning, aware as he now is of the man and his beast who hide underneath that formal exterior - bristling with latent power, and yet, yearningly vulnerable. He thinks of what Newt told him about injured, cornered beasts being the most dangerous; and watches his guardian pace restlessly around the kitchen drinking cup after cup of black coffee.  
  
Graves talks to him as usual, reading him titbits of interesting information from _The New York Ghost_ in his raspy morning voice. He tactically avoids the obvious – the front page headline blaring out that “Grindelwald Has Escaped Custody!”, but Credence notices that his firm hands shake whilst holding the broadsheet. Graves’ big round reading glasses (which usually give Credence such forbidden feelings) are propped on the bridge of his nose; but Credence can’t take his mind off the wampus. His dark eyes burn into Graves’ shirtsleeve where he knows that the ink creature hides – would it be attentive and alert to the news like its bearer, he wonders, or pacing restlessly or pouncing or stalking imaginary prey? It’s a creature of ink, he thinks fancifully, perhaps it feels a certain kinship with the newsprint? Graves lifts his wampus-arm to rub the back of his neck, and Credence’s mind lurches – how far can the wampus run? He’s been focusing on that forearm, but what if it can weave its way around Graves’ upper arm, the curves of his bicep, or prowl across the tendons of his neck? Credence spills his coffee and it burns his fingers, but he hardly feels it in comparison to the burn in his cheeks as Graves looks up at him over the newspaper and raises a thick eyebrow.  
  
  
It's days before he catches another glimpse of the creature, just the smallest peep of clawed forepaws extending past Graves’ cuff, and his heart does a backflip with joy. Every morning becomes a restless, dogged search for another sight of the wampus before Graves claps a firm hand on his shoulder, squeezes lightly, and apparates away to MACUSA, where Credence cannot follow. In the daytime he reads the beginner spellbooks Graves which has bought him, practices his wand gestures, steals glacé cherries from the jars on the top shelves of the kitchen, and pores over Newt’s book until its dogeared. As per Graves’ strict instructions, he pays special attention to _Dark Arts Defense For Beginners._ Inside the front cover is a fluttering little label which reads, in dark green ink _“Property of Ilvermorny School Library,”_. This has been amended in red ink to _“Property of Percival J.G. Graves, Esquire.”_ In an older, more serious hand, Graves has spent hours annotating the volume with little instructions – this hand position, this amount of kickback, _“surprisingly enjoyable to cast!”_ Sitting in the window with the worn textbook in his lap, Credence watches the mist outside and finds himself thinking more about Percival J.G. Graves Esquire, teenage rulebreaker than about the fundamental principles of the shield charm. He keeps his copy of _Fantastic Beasts_ next to him all day, open on the Wampus page, and carefully memorises everything he can. In some parts of Tennessee, it is known as a gallywampus.  
  
  
Graves arrives home later and later as the weeks go by, and on some cold, interminable nights he doesn’t return at all. He becomes heavy handed and impatient, banging plates of food down on the table, slamming the bathroom door shut in the morning, and kicking things out of his way. When he catches sight of Credence startling at the noises, his thunderous expression softens. He slumps, rubs a hand over his face, and apologises, reassures, holds Credence’s wobbly, shaking form against his broad chest, imperceptibly shaking himself. MACUSA is in uproar, he tells Credence in a resolute voice. An internal witch-hunt is underway, rooting out the Grindelwald supporters who helped him escape – who gave the dark lord information on Graves in the first place. Like the real flesh and blood wampuses, Graves is hunting his prey, attacking his captors.  
  
  
Credence’s nights become beset with thoughts of the wampus’ clawed paws on the fine hairs of Graves’ arm, the scent of old sweat and sandalwood, of the time Graves himself growled when he had received an insistent memo from MACUSA late one evening. He imagines himself back in the sitting room. The firelight glances off the contours of Graves’ face, but instead of touching that raven black hair, he’s laying his palm on his guardian’s sweat-sheened chest, fingertips tracing through Graves’ wiry chest hair, like the wampus’ paws on his forearm. Credence lies awake in bed, breathing heavily, body tingling and pulsing, blood thumping – but he doesn’t dare venture back out into the hall or to peek into the sitting room.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
Credence begins to hide Graves’ cufflinks, sneaking them off the dresser and smuggling them into his own room, palms hot with the inappropriateness of his actions. He collects a treasure trove of the little glinting objects beneath a pliable floorboard like a magpie. Credence knows he is being terribly, sinfully, selfish, but he longs to catch another glimpse of the wampus’ paws and tail writhing around Graves’ wrist, free from the bonds of shirt cuffs.  
  
He's sitting in the dining room in his pyjamas drinking tea when his dirty little plot comes crumbling down around him. Graves is taking far longer than usual to prepare for work, and Credence knows that he's got a big meeting of International Wizarding Security representatives this morning, because Graves explained at great length last night what a strong global union of wizardkind would mean for catching Grindelwald. It seems to be all he talks about at the moment: catching Grindelwald, prosecuting Grindelwald, and after a couple of whiskeys, torturing and killing Grindelwald. There’s a loud crash from Graves’ bedroom, and Credence can hear the older man cursing _“Cunning little bastards. Where the fuck?”_ It takes Credence a few moments to recognise the last thing that Graves has said, _“accio,”_ and then a cold, queasy panic lurches in his stomach. The sound of banging and rattling is coming from Credence’s bedroom, and Graves strides along the hallway in pursuit of it, coattails flapping behind him. Credence knows exactly what he’s hunting, and he begins to desperately calculate how far he could get before Graves found him if he made a dash for the door.  
  
A moment later Graves sweeps into the dining room with his hand closed around a handkerchief-wrapped bundle. He slams it down onto the table in one sharp movement, sending cufflinks skittering across the polished surface of the mahogany. The noise fills the room, sharp and turbulent to his ears. Credence’s body has frozen where he sits, and the queasy panic is threatening to turn into full-blown nausea.  
  
_“Credence.”_ Graves says, insistently, voice echoing around the room. When he reluctantly looks up, the man towering over him looks feral. His jaw is clenched, and anger dwells in his dark eyes – it could almost be Grindelwald again, in an act of possession. Hot, panicked tears well up inside Credence, bringing with them a bubbling sense of fear, recollection, and shame.  
  
_“I can buy you some cufflinks, Credence,”_ Graves says sternly, voice laced with irritation, _“There’s no need to steal from me. Hell, you could’ve borrowed some of mine…”_ The tears spill over. Credence gnaws at his bottom lip, swallowing the hard lump in his throat. He closes his eyes, and retreats into that nice, dark place inside his own head. How can he tell Mr Graves that he stood over him in the sitting room, touched him? Wanted to see his body?  
  
_“Credence?”_ he can hear Graves voice outside his internal haven, and it sounds less angry now. He sounds worried, floundering.  
  
Unbidden, the memory of Graves asleep comes to Credence’s mind: the fragility of his slumped body, the terrified chanting of protective spells, the cold sweat on his forehead. He thinks about the hours of annotations on the Shield Charm page. _“_  
  
I-” he ventures, voice wobbly, choked with tears, _“I just wanted to see.”_  
  
_“To see what, my boy?”_ Graves questions, exasperated and bewildered.  
  
_“The wampus,”_ Credence sniffles, feeling utterly wrung out.  
  
Graves sits down in the chair next to him heavily, and rakes his hands through his hair. Blinking away his cloud of tears, Credence offers the man next to him a weak smile.  
  
_“It’s wonderful,”_ he confesses in hushed tones.  
  
Graves seems to cheer at the compliment, and his eyes go bright and slightly mischievous. He begins to carefully and methodically roll up his left sleeve, and Credence has to suppress an unexpected little noise keening from back of his throat. He knows that his cheeks are burning, but he can’t stop his eyes from devouring Graves’ revealed skin inch by tantalising inch. The marks from Grindelwald’s mistreatment still circle his wrist, an unhappy memento – but they pale in comparison to the wampus. It lifts its noble head, and turns its yellow lantern eyes on Credence, reunited at last with the night time visitor who had disturbed its slumber those months ago. It stretches, and Credence huffs out a little laugh of joy.  
  
_“He’s a fine, handsome beast, isn’t he?”_ Graves says, proudly, conspiratorially.  
  
_“Just like his bearer”_ Credence breathes, his voice barely above a whisper in the silence of the room. He doesn’t know what makes him do it, but he reaches for the older man’s arm, stroking, touching. His cold fingertips trace the undulations of muscle and bone and ink.  
  
_“Credence,”_ Graves wheezes out weakly, before his big hands are clutching Credence’s jaw, framing his face. He’s holding so tightly, and Credence feels himself melt into that strong, firm grip. He turns his face carefully, and presses the smallest of kisses to Graves’ palm.  
  
_“By Morrigan, you’re a sweet thing,”_ Graves half-growls.  
  
Credence offers him a little half-smile in return, eyes dark and soft and feline; and then Graves’ mouth is on his own, kissing him with a gentle tenderness completely at odds with his vice-like grip. Credence hums happily, and feels Graves deepening the kiss, the ghost of a smile against his lips.  
  
He thinks suddenly of Scamander’s description of the wampus:  
  
_“MOM Classification: XXXXX Known Wizard-Killer, Impossible to Train or Domesticate._  
  
The Wampus is a beautiful yet ferocious beast with unconquerable strength and an insatiable appetite. Completely untrainable, it is dangerous to Muggles and Wizards alike. However, once befriended the wampus is unwaveringly loyal and warmly affectionate, sometimes even playful.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Here's lookin at you, honeybun. <3


End file.
